


Once More unto the Breach

by SylvanWitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've each been here before.  Except, not really.  Episode coda for 7:23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once More unto the Breach

He’s been to Heaven and to Hell.  

 

Heaven had fewer harps and more beer than he’d expected.

  
Hell was worse than he’d imagined it could be, and he’d spent 365 days putting it together in his head before the big finale that turned out to be not-so-final after all.

 

Purgatory?  Dean hasn’t got a fucking clue.  And honestly, he never thought he’d say this, but he’s wishing he’d stuck out the twelfth grade just a little longer, because he seems to remember that Ms. Monzano, period five English, was going to start Dante just about the time he’d decided high school was for losers and dropped out.

 

Then again, like he said to Cas, he’s not especially lucky as these things go, and if he has to end up in some other realm, it’s of course going to be the one he knows the least about.

 

From what he can tell, it’s monsterlicious, though.  Impossibly fast things move through the undergrowth, the noise they make barely registering before something else catches his attention—a growl, the sound of wet jaws creaking wide, his heart pounding up into his throat.

 

And the stench.

 

He once spent a day and a half waist deep in a flooded cemetery.  He had to wash everything he was wearing six times and shower until his skin was raw, and still he stank for a week.

 

This?  Way worse.

 

He tries to calm himself, tries not to drag so much fetid air into his lungs, convinced that whatever he’s taking in is going to crawl into his lungs and set up camp there, slither into his brain from his nose and play him like a puppet, all jerky strings and flailing.

 

He’s afraid to move, afraid to stand still.  He wishes he had his flask and then remembers why he doesn’t.  Wishes he had more than a knife and the gun gathering sweat at the small of his back.

 

Wishes Sam was here and then just as quickly banishes the thought.

 

A sound right behind him loosens his belly and makes him suck in an unwanted mouthful of dank, stinking air, and he has time to think that there probably aren’t many rules in a place like this, except maybe one:

 

Even the weakest monster in this abyss of misery is ten times stronger than Dean.

 

 

*****************

 

Except for the viscous black liquid redecorating the glass walls, Sam could be in the chem. lab at Stanford working on an experiment late at night.  The building is still except for the efficient hum of the air conditioning system, and he shakes his head, convinced he’s gone deaf for the heaviness behind his ears and the way he can hear every hush-shush of his heart valves.

 

He knows without calling out that his brother has gone somewhere he himself can’t follow, and even as the despair of being here again, being left behind to cobble together a life out of the broken bits, washes over him, Sam refuses the feeling.

 

He’s not doing this another time.

 

Not giving up on his brother.

  
Not hunting the one responsible for taking him.

 

Not waking every morning to have the blessed second of forgetfulness broken by the stabbing agony of recognition.

 

Dean’s alive.  And he’s coming back.  And that’s that.

 

Resolve in place, doubts firmly shoved where the sun will never shine on them, Sam reverts to survival instinct.  

 

He’s in a building full of big mouths who while temporarily confused are also eternally hungry.

  
Sam’s not interested in being on the menu.

 

With a last thought for Kevin’s admonitions, Sam spends a few minutes once again recalling his college chemistry class, enough to cobble together a Winchester Special:  Three parts incendiary blend, one part big fucking boom.

 

Sam remembers something his dad said once, years ago in some anonymous backwater where they’d been hunting a monster Sam’s long since forgotten.  They were holed up in an unheated cabin, freezing around a sputtering, wet-wood fire, Dean trying to cheer Sam up with lame jokes he’d read on the back of a menu in a diner two states back.

 

Sam wasn’t laughing.  He remembers stuttering something like, “Screw you, Dean,” through chattering teeth.

 

Dad had said, “Enough!” in that voice of his, the one that brooked no debate, and Sam had fallen into a sullen, miserable stupor.

 

Maybe five minutes later, Dad had held up a familiar can, safety top already thumbed back, scent of the butane they used for bone-burning sharp in the cold air.

 

“I thought that was the last of it,” Dean said, eyeing their father’s rakish smirk with something close to suspicion.

 

Dad had shrugged, waited a beat until Sam’s attention was full on him, given him a slo-mo, elaborate wink, and sprayed the butane on the fire.

 

“Sometimes,” Dad had said, “You just have to burn it all up.”

 

As Sam tosses the beaker with the catalyst over his shoulder and lengthens his stride to get clear of the blast zone, he catches himself smiling at a piratical angle and has to stop himself from dropping a wink on the startled guard he passes as the first big WHOOMPH! of super-heated air overtakes them.

 

 _Words to live by_ , he thinks, hitting the door to the stairs at a run.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story, as with all in this series, is taken from the Harfleur speech in _Henry V_. I can't believe I got this much mileage out of it--lol! Also, it's worth noting that my Season 4 episode codas, which leave Dean in hell, evolved into a Sam/Dean epic that followed the brothers into Purgatory and then a certain version of Heaven. "There is nothing new under the sun," as Shakespeare said. Of course, he was stealing from the bible. Anyway, it's been a pleasure sharing these with you this season. Thanks for reading, leaving comments and kudos, and generally being a great fandom!


End file.
